Amanda Downum - The Drowning City

Then a familiar chill settled into her flesh, driving back the pain and filling her with unnatural strength. She knew she should protest, but it was too much relief to let someone else move for her.

Even through half-numb limbs, she felt instead of heard a roar building behind them. They turned just in time to see a wall of mud and trees sweep down on them.

The Sajet Dam curved across the river like gray veils, two tiers of stone where the Green Maiden Falls had once cascaded. Zhirin had seen the waterfall only in pictures, or in her dreams. Towers rose on either side of the water, their western faces carved into colossal statues of women-the ancient Assari queens Sajet and Anuket, though she had always thought of them as the River Mother and one of her reed-maiden daughters. The towers were home to guards and engineers and the mages who siphoned energy from the surging water. Walkways fringed the walls like lace, arching over the rushing spillways.

The earthquakes had already weakened the foundations. A hairline fissure spread down the lower face of the dam, slowly leaking threads of water. As they drew closer, she could make out people moving on the walkways and tower balconies.

When they were within range of normal eyes, a man ran from the northern tower. He looked around, probably for horses-Zhirin wondered what he would have thought if he’d seen them land. “Lord al Seth, what’s happened?”

“The mountain has woken. Take your men and get out of here. Symir isn’t safe-keep to the Southern Bank and avoid the wind from the west.”

“But the dam-”

“There’s nothing you can do for it now, and the earth may keep shaking. I’ll look after the dam.”

They waited as both towers emptied. The already skittish horses would have nothing to do with the causeway, and the guards finally released those stabled in the northern tower.

“Are you sure about this?” Asheris asked as they watched the evacuation. Isyllt had barely spoken since they landed, only stood in a weary daze, her mangled hands held against her chest.

“Can you think of any other way?”

His silence was answer enough.

When the last of the guards had vanished on the other side, Zhirin stepped onto the causeway across the top tier. The roar of water through the sluices was deafening and she felt the force of it shivering through the stones beneath her feet.

The river was different here. The Mir she knew was soft-voiced, relentless but gentle, deep and dangerous but not angry. The water behind the dam raged and surged, pushing against her prison, constantly searching for a way out, a way free. She tasted of stone and snowmelt, carried dizzying images of falls and cataracts, of soaring mountains and jagged crags and the distant lands beyond them.

Zhirin closed her eyes and listened, let the river’s voice fill her, let her intentions spill out. She wasn’t sure how long she stood there, but when she opened her eyes again the eastern sky had begun to gray and she knew what she needed to do.

“I’m no engineer,” Asheris said when she returned to the bank, “but I think we can manage to open the floodgates.”

Zhirin shook her head. “It’s not enough. She wants freedom. Can you break the dam?”

He and Isyllt looked at each other, dark face and white wearing identical frowns.

“I can find the faults,” Isyllt said at last, “but I’m too weak to do much else.” Her mouth twisted at the admission.

Asheris smiled wryly. “Show them to me and I can exploit them. This is a day of breaking bonds.”

“And everything else,” muttered Isyllt, touching her swollen lip.

Zhirin stood in the center of the causeway while Asheris and Isyllt went about their work. She couldn’t bear to watch the plumes of ash in the western sky, the rain of cinders; instead she bent her head and let the river’s dark thoughts fill her.

She knew what was needed. What was demanded. It was a much lower price than the mountain had claimed. And when she thought of her city burning behind her, of Jabbor’s forests, it was easy to agree.

He would understand, she thought. And even if he didn’t, this was better. Her love of the river was older than her feelings for him, older than her desire for the cunning sorceries of the Kurun Tam. Still, she was glad she’d known both. Even glad she’d met Isyllt, when she thought about it. Gladder still to know that she wouldn’t grow as cold and heartless.

She searched in her purse, found the wooden comb Suni had given her. It took a moment to free her braids; ash and bits of leaves fluttered loose. As soon as the teeth touched her hair the water answered, waves rising and strengthening. Somewhere in the churning depths in front of her she felt spirits stir, glimpsed pale mottled faces and long weed-green hair.

Sister , they called. Sisterdaughtermotherriver.

“We’re ready,” Isyllt called soon after. “Get clear.”

“No.” The strength of her voice surprised her. “This is where I need to be.”

She saw understanding in their faces. “Are you sure?” Isyllt’s voice was much gentler than she’d ever heard before.

“You don’t have to,” Asheris said. Not arguing or pleading, and she was grateful for it.

“No. But this will be best.”

The lake surged and roiled, waves crashing against stone, high enough that their spray slicked her face. The voices of the reed-maidens filled her head.

“I’m ready,” she told them. “Do it.”

Asheris and Isyllt clasped hands, and she felt the magic gathering beneath her. She waved once in farewell, then turned back to the waiting water.

“Mother,” she whispered, and wasn’t sure if she meant Fei Minh or the Mir. Her hands tightened on the railing, rust scraping her palms. No, that wasn’t the way. She inhaled a damp breath, blew out her fear as the lower dam crumbled with a roar.

The causeway shattered.

She raised her arms and opened them to the oncoming wall of water. It hurt for an instant, as the impact broke her limbs, drove shards of rib into her lungs, but the river took the pain.

The river took everything.

Dark and fast, the river runs, thick with flotsam-jagged stone and bits of iron spinning in the current before they sink into the mud; a girl’s shattered body; a daughter’s soul cradled in her mother’s arms. Water rushes over the banks. Spirits ride the surge, ecstatic in their freedom.

The river rages, decades of anger unleashed, tempered by a daughter’s grief, a daughter’s hope. A daughter’s bargain.

The mountain shakes, heaving the river in her bed, undoing centuries of patient carving. Fish and snakes writhe in upthrust mud; slime glistens on bones and stones hidden for hundreds of years. The water tastes of ash, of hot stone, of blood and brimstone.

Boats snap their moorings and capsize, throwing screaming passengers into the roar and rush. That part of the river that was a girl mourns each snuffed and broken life, but knows she cannot save them all. Mud rushes down the flanks of the shaking mountain, adds its weight to the flood.

In the city, canals burst out of their banks, water sweeping over streets and sidewalks. A bull kheyman washes onto the steps of a house, roaring his outrage. The earth trembles and a bridge shudders and gives way. In the Floating Garden, potted trees break their tethers and bob away, shedding leaves and branches into the hungry current. In Straylight, buildings groan and slide, bricks and mortar raining into the floodwaters. In the harbor, the sea already churns, vexed to tempest by the earth’s upheaval. Caught between wave and flood, docks splinter, ships founder and sink. Bayside windows shatter under the onslaught, doors burst from their hinges. The water snatches people off quays and sidewalks and drowns all their cries and prayers.